As an apology...

for not posting last week, I offer this pink building. I had a packed week, but I've got stuff to post this week. Plenty of stories.

Whoops...

...maybe I just have a general problem keeping living things upright.

My Greenish Thumb

This title makes me wonder if Tara still reads this and if she'll bring up The Cactus Incident. I guess we'll just have to see.

One elusive spring day (before the temperatures plunged back into the thirties and we were issued a winter storm watch) I went to Home Depot with a friend to check out paint samples for a semi-illicit painting project we've got planned. More on that later, depending on how illicit it turns out to be. Anyway, Home Depot. I friggin' love this store. The smell, the ridiculous size, the aisles and aisles of stuff I have no use but an inexplicable desire for- it's great. We headed right to paint and attempted to determine what colors of paint were most conducive to study and concentration. And also what colors were the prettiest. I have a few seasons of Trading Spaces watching under my belt so I'm essentially an expert. We grabbed samples of some possible colors (gray with purple accent walls, we are nothing if not full of school spirit) and some light bulbs for me. I tried to find a fuse for a beloved and recently incapacitated desk lamp to no avail. I demand that you care about my mundane day-to-day illumination activities.

And then, an astounding discovery - a display of water lilies that can be grown in containers! That's not even the best part! They were all labeled with the flower's expected color. I began looking through them to see what was available when what should I see but the most wonderful word possible when dealing with colors: changeable. Changeable! Changeable color flowers! Truly, we are living in the strange and glorious future with flowers that float in bowls of water and magically change color.

After purchasing an equally exciting teal hurricane vase from Target, I gathered my supplies on a garbage bag on the floor of my apartment. To begin the process, I immediately fumbled the bag the water lily came in, tumbling it end over end to the floor in a spectacular firework-esque spray of dirt and twine. Shit. Now I had a 50/50 shot of plunking this net bag in right side up. I decided the top was the side that appeared to have some sort of brainy growth beginning to sprout out of it. After all, most people have brainy cranial growths. And yes, I'm aware of the fact that plants sprout various appendages from both ends, and that the disgusting brain growth did look a lot more like roots now that I think about it, dammit, but what's done is done. It needs full sun so it steals some of Sasha's recently recovered sunny window real estate, and I keep my fingers crossed that I didn't doom my new plant friend to an upside down watery grave.

Now I've got to prepare for my weekend guest, Bailey. If you're worried about her safety based on the previous story, you need not fear. I've spent more time with fauna than I have with flora. Besides, it's much easier to tell if a Labrador Retriever is right-side-up. I'm sure we'll be fine.

Update: Hooray! I think I picked the right side! Of the plant!

What...

the hell.

The Past Few Days

A few days ago, my sister Laura sent me a card she made.

She should start a greeting card business, g's.

Yesterday I walked full-force into the hook on the back of a bathroom stall door. It looks kind of like I have a tattoo of a nondescript bruise on my arm and it hurts like a bitch.

Tonight I was doing the dishes, and while I was scrubbing a pot a rogue piece of broccoli leapt out of the soapy water onto the handle. For a split second I was absolutely terrified. Yeah, of broccoli. I thought it was a mutant praying mantis or something.

Ooh, and my sister's gonna have another baby! So that's exciting, although it's not like my title changes. Maybe I'll add another 'a' to the word 'aunt' for every niece or nephew my sisters pop out. Yahoo for me, I'm gonna be an aaunt!

The Creature

There is a creature that lives somewhere on my floor. Close to my apartment, if my aural depth perception does not deceive me.

All I know about the creature is that it has the shriek of a squeaky dog toy being stepped on. Not very intimidating, you might say. Yeah, you're right. But it is annoying. This thing shrieks constantly. Not normal baby cries, just squeaky toy wails. Normally this isn't a problem, but if I'm trying to study in quiet, this quickly drives me insane. I have yet to lay eyes on this being, but if voice is any indication it has no mouth, only a small vent that causes air to squeal as it rushes in or out. The very thought of this malformed maw horrifies me.

Yes, I know it's probably a child. I think I woke it up one night when I slammed lettuce onto my counter to break its lettuce-neck and make a salad. And I don't care.

Having said that, it's probably some kid with a chromosome abnormality that results in this hideous vocal permutation whose parents struggle daily with the difficulty of raising an atypical child in such a cruel, unforgiving world.

Either way, it' s damn annoying.

The One-Blog Summary of Five Months Two Days Sixteen Hours Nine Minutes and Thirty Seconds

I know, I know.

Kim and Denise came to visit, and then I cat-whispered Sasha into shutting the hell up. I bet Kim and Denise wish those events were switched around.

I attended supernumerary orientations, class started, and my head began to fill with trisomies, monosomies and the exquisitely worthless study of epidemiology.

I did laundry for the first time only to have some bastard steal my peach-scented dryer sheets when left alone for thirty seconds. Thirty effing seconds. So I left an angry post-it note in the hall where they were stolen (childish, yes, but it made me feel better) which I later found stuck to a single non-peach smelling (yeah, I smelled it to check) dryer sheet. Smartasses. I spent the next few days surreptitiously sniffing fellow elevator passengers for any scent of thieving bastardism - to no avail.

We started medical communications, a class where we hold fake exam sessions with fake patients. Hilarity ensued when we were encouraged to make up solutions to their problems. Heh. I miss that class for many, many reasons.

My car was cruelly and viciously and okay FINE superficially violated while innocently parked on Lake Shore Drive. Grrr.

My mom sent me new peach dryer sheets.

Classes continued: PS continued to be worthless, epi still sucked, genetic lecture series and journal club continued to be easy stretches of no work on my part, intro to genetic counseling was still ruining my otherwise free Fridays. Oh and all the while, I was doing four hours of work study a week in the neuro department, conveniently located across the street from the icebox that is Lurie.

I got a sweet parking spot in the garage. The precious is safe.

Thanksgiving. Kara had the Iraq war explained to her and her only question was about how different countries communicate with each other. Her suggestion was calling cards. Ate food, was thankful.

More classes.

Finals... ugh. Then my bus pass betrayed me briefly before deciding we could be BFF for twelve more hours - then it was entirely dead to me. I hung its carcass on my bulletin board.

After that day of mind-bending tiredness, Jenna the sister came to visit for a few days. We did some shopping, saw Wicked, did some more shopping and nearly froze to death. This last occurred on more than one occassion, one of which involved a zoo, Christmas (sorry, holiday) lights and animals that stayed out of view in their shelters and were therefore smarter than the two of us.

Christmas break. Laura had her foot removed, or a bone removed, or something, and couldn't walk all through break. We watched a lot of DVDs, so I got completely caught up on Grey's Anatomy just in time to have no new episodes thanks to the writer's strike. Dominated numerous games of Xbox 360 SceneIt. Went out to eat, hot-tubbed, slept, and generally had a great, relaxing break.

Then it was back to school, thankfully now with a puffy and furry and long new coat in an acceptable color.

More classes, blah blah blah.

Bad weather consistently being built up to epic blizzard proportions only to have the green radar masses miss me entirely, much to my eternal disappointment. We did get a preemptive snow day in anticipation of a storm that never came. Pretty great to have a mid-week day off, though.

Happy hour was reinstated, and the peasants rejoiced.

Mrs. Kim flew in for a visit instead of going to some dumb tropical destination. Good choice.

And then - rotations began, and in this time of no sleep and no free time, I was inspired to resurrect and update this blog. So that's a quick recap of my grad school experience thus far. Of course there's more, but in the interest of time and privacy (which is a DAMN shame, because I could spin some fantastic tales about certain... things) we'll have to leave it at that.

Anyway, I'm really going to try hard to update regularly, and by all means send some abuse my way if I'm slacking off. Nice abuse. Encouraging abuse. In the form of flowery prose and flowers. I've got enough stress already.